Apparently this run of abyssmal luck I've been having is the fault of the stars. (Of course it's not my fault, how dare you!) Here's what one astrologer has to say for Sagittarians this week:

Are you sitting comfortably? of course you're not. There is scarcely an archer alive who isn't either battling the boss, collecting their divorce papers or wandering around singing daft love songs -- or all three. Whatever's going on, the emotional temperature this week will rise as the Full Moon arrives in your sign on Tuesday and lines up with volcanic Pluto. Like the election, it's sure to get messy -- just try not to hit any fellow voters, especially ones you love.

I talked to Andrew today, who's also a Sag, and he's had an exciting week on the farm -- he caught someone trying to steal the diesel fuel they keep in a big tank for their tractors, and they've had an infestation of peacocks.

Back in the city -- after Thursday's carry-on, Friday started out relatively calmly. But I had a fraught night at work, and at one point completely lost my rag and threatened to leave. I really am thinking seriously about it, it's starting to look like an attractive option. Then there were a couple of late-breaking major stories -- the Tel Aviv bombing and the Nepali royal family massacre -- that had us working hard through the break and right up to the wire. Exciting, but tiring.

So I got off to a bit of a late start on Saturday, though I managed to get quite a lot done -- including potting up a couple of tomato plants I'm going to try growing on the "patio" -- before heading off to the races. The traffic was terrible, so I ended up missing the first race. Got a bet on for the second though, and met up with my friends (using our mobile phones as locating devices: "I'm by the yellow and black umbrella at the front of the stand.." "Yes, I can see Martin now..")

It rained. Three of my horses came last.

But it was lots of fun, wonderful atmosphere and worth the money I frittered away.

Martin and Heather invited Fiona and I back to their place for dinner -- and very sweetly invited Bertie too. I went back home to walk and water him, and reluctantly decided to leave him home. Perhaps I should have taken him, he was certainly peeved about being left at home again, after spending most of the day alone.

Anyway dinner was lovely. But when I left I discovered I'd left my car lights on and the battery was flat. Martin kindly fetched his car and jumper leads but that didn't work. The starter motor was jammed. So I called my rescue service, and after trying everything else the bloke gave me a bump-start by towing the car.

Bertie was thrilled when I arrived home at 1.30am, but later gave me what I took to be a coded message. He tore a newspaper to pieces in front of me, looking at me intently the whole time. Rip. Rip. Rip. Tiny little shreds.

Today I was looking forward to spending some quality time with him, but alas I had a call from my boss saying he'd hurt his foot badly and would I please come to work early. Siiiiiigh. It wasn't too bad though, only one page.

Tomorrow I collect my new computer but I won't have much time to play with it until my day off on Wednesday. I'm making no other plans for Wednesday. I'll need to recover from Tuesday's full moon, and Thursday is the election, I'll have to be calm for that.

The good news is that I only have this week and part of next week, and I'm off on holiday for two weeks. I had planned to go away for the second week, but staying home is increasingly tempting. Two weeks of lazing around, doing a spot of gardening now and again, going on dog-walking expeditions, maybe taking in some culture -- art exhibitions and such -- mmmm, that could be very good indeed. Maybe I could go away for just a couple of days. Or not.

Here's a little intelligence test for you:

You are meeting a passenger at Edinburgh airport who's arriving on a plane from Duesseldorf, Germany. Where do you wait?

A) Domestic Arrivals
B) International Arrivals

If you answer B, you are a total moron, you idiot. International Arrivals is for planes that come from abroad, ok? Well duh.

I could not believe it. There I was with my little sign, waiting. The arrivals monitor showed the Duesseldorf flight landing slightly early, then said "Waiting for luggage", then "Luggage in hall". People came out and other people holding signs greeted them and led them away. An old lady was brought out in a wheelchair ... but no, she was someone else's old lady.

Finally I approached the information desk.

"Oh the Duesseldorf plane comes in through Domestic Arrivals." Apparently it stops in Birmingham. "So why does it say 'Duesseldorf' on the arrivals monitor?" Shrug.

I hustled down to the other end of the airport to the scrum at Domestic Arrivals, scanned anxiously for a lost-looking old lady. "No, dear, but I am waiting for someone..." said one candidate.

I went back to information and asked them to page my missing Duesseldorfer. No nibbles.

Here there's an interlude of frenzied phoning activity -- I called the train company to see if I could find out if she'd gone to the station under her own steam, they gave me a number that wasn't answered no matter how long I left it. I phoned the family the visitor is staying with to see if she'd phoned them. I had her paged again.

The host suggested she may have got off in Birmingham, so I went to the British Airways desk. While there I suggested that it might be nice to have had some indication that the Duesseldorf plane was a Domestic Arrival. "It's on the board in Domestic Arrivals," she said crossly. Of course, I should have looked there rather than think the monitor at International Arrivals meant anything.

By now I'd had her paged enough times to suspect she'd gone to the railway station but I didn't want to leave until I was sure. So I rang the train company again a few times before finally getting a human being. She took my details and said she'd phone me back. I bought an espresso and tried to chill. She phoned and said yes, the woman I was meeting had got the train I was supposed to be ferrying her to.

Great. I phoned her hosts with the good news, finished my espresso and went to get my car.

I'd parked in the one-hour car park because that's how long I was going to be. I'd been there three hours. It cost me £8. EIGHT POUNDS!!!

I had been thinking I would return the hosts' gift voucher, seeing as how I didn't complete their task. But jeez, Louise ... I think with all the phone calls and sweating and scurrying and then the huge parking fee, I deserve a little treat.

I'm quite pleased the mystery visitor made it to the train station under her own steam, without fuss (I hope). Always nice to see someone exceeding expectations. And I was also pleased that I didn't lose my temper once, not even with the British Airways airheads.

After the airport fiasco I had to go into town anyway to take bits of my old computer to the computer shop to be inserted in my new computer(!!!!!), traffic horrendous, and back out to walk Bertie.

I'm now in an advanced state of exhaustion, soggy with lack of sleep and running around.

I finally went shopping for a new computer, or rather for a new base unit. It was great to order up just what I want, and get a brilliant setup (I hope) for less than I would have paid for a whole new system. Plus the firm I'm buying it for will install the internal bits I'm keeping -- modem and scsi card -- for free. I have to take them in tomorrow ... which means I kind of have to take them out tonight, ahem. Then I have the weekend to quickly back up the last few bits and pieces ... just email and photos and stuff ... before the new unit arrives. A 40Gb hard drive! I remember when 40Mb seemed amazing. Now you'd only think that was whizzy if it was in an MP3 player or something. I'll have 256Mb of memory and a 1Gb chip, so I'll be cooking with gas!!

It's a drastic solution to a crashing computer, but what the hell. I'll be able to update the website without rebooting three times.

I had a great couple of days off, lots of walking and eating. I did another BBQ while Andrew was here -- chicken marinated in soya sauce, olive oil and garlic. It is soooooo delicious and dead easy. And of course it smells fantastic while it's cooking.

On Monday we went for a walk around the loch at Linlithgow -- it's only little so it's not a major trek -- and on our way round met a man who used to race greyhounds at "flapping tracks" -- unofficial dog racing. We had a long and fascinating conversation. He was full of praise for Bertie, said he's the right weight, "fighting weight, like a boxer", has lovely feet, nice legs, a good head and a "long cast" -- his back. Best of all, he said, he looks happy and fit.

He said he kept all his dogs after they finished racing but didn't have any now -- he has a terrier. He said there's a bit of bad practice on the tracks, doping and that.

"I didn't do that ... well, I did experiment with it once..."
"Oh, it's all coming out now, Tam," his wife murmured.
"But that dog never ran again."
"What a shame," I said.
"Shame on me, for doing that. I learned a lesson, but it was the dog paid the price."

He gave dietary advice, which I'm pretty much ignoring. No way am I going to "bile up a pot o cabbage" for Bertie. He also recommended a breakfast of Weetabix and milk, with a raw egg broken into it. Hmm, maybe. I'm wary of upsetting Bertie's digestion, though -- using the poop scoop is bad enough on a good day.

I just had to go and fiddle about with the settings -- it seems blogger.com's Blogspot server had a problem. All better now, but I think this blogspot had been down for a while.

Anyway yes, Bertie was rummaging under his favourite bush looking for rabbits this afternoon when a deer burst out of the undergrowth and rushed past us. I thought Bertie might chase it, but he just stared at it and went back to the rabbit hunt. Roe deer aren't very big, but this one was still a lot bigger than him and it had antlers. My next-door neighbour said she saw a deer in her back garden a few years ago, so they do get around. But it would have to cross roads (or jump 15ft fences) to get into the field from open land.

On this morning's walk, Bertie nearly pulled me off my feet chasing after ... a rock. But it could have been a hedgehog, it was the same shape, size and colour.


Rock


Hedgehog

See? It's a mistake anyone could make.

I had a barbecue last night, and it was great. I got three disposable BBQs -- tinfoil dishes filled with charcoal and fitted with a grille -- and fired one up, cooked myself a salmon fillet. Yum! I'm going to make a habit of it, maybe do some vege kebabs as well next time.

Bertie became hysterical when I lit the barbie -- the flames take about 20 minutes to die down. He must just despair of me sometimes. Here I was completely ignoring the fact that the garden was ON FIRE, even though he was barking his head off right next to the blaze.

Guess what we saw in the field at the back of my place today?


A roe deer.

Bertie has a sore foot. I've inspected it but can't see anything wrong, so it may be muscular, maybe a strain. It seems to get better after he's warmed up, it's worst when he's just woken. I'll just take him on short walks for a bit, maybe try icing it, and take him back to the vet next week if it doesn't improve over the weekend.

I'm tiiiiiired, haven't had enough sleep for a few days now.

Er ... that's it. Andrew mowed the lawns, bless him, they look great.

Andrew arrived today weary and blistered after walking from South Gyle, where he'd been ferried by the friend he was staying with. The friend thought it was maybe three miles' walk .... so Andrew walked a few miles, then saw a sign that said "Forth Road Bridge 9 miles".


Andrew at Tarbert on Harris.

Luckily I'd already taken Bertie for his walk before Andrew arrived, so he was able to collapse. Later he treated me to lunch, at a Italian/Spanish place. It's great to see him again. Bertie thinks he's wonderful too, which is good because they're sharing the kennel tonight.

In case anyone was wondering, the tile guy still hasn't turned up. It's been over a month now since I chose the tiles. White, Spanish. I keep phoning and the other bloke, the one in the shop, says things like, "Oh, hasn't he been yet, dear? I thought he'd done that job. The tiles are here..."

I'll have to get someone else in. If I can be bothered.

I read something today about emigration, about the queues outside Australia House in London. One bloke was quoted as saying he wanted to leave Britain because he was sick of the negative, no-can-do attitude. And I thought, there goes another Whingeing Pom! He'll be in Sydney in a few months, sitting there grizzling away about how it's too hot and the beer's too cold and there are too many Koreans.

I picked a few branches of hawthorn blossom today, I love the acrid, almost-offensive smell and the white and green.

Today a friend said: "I've been keeping track of you on your website, reading all these things you haven't told me."

But I have told you! That's what this is for!

Tsk.

Anyhoo, the friend in question was Annmaree, over from Australia on a honeymoon-type visit. She and Andrew came for lunch and it was a gorgeous day, hot and sunny.

Tomorrow's shake-down sail in Eraser has been cancelled, which gives me a window of opportunity for some truly creative sloth. Oh, and a chance to mow the lawn, which is growing at an astonishing rate.

I'm beginning to regret, ever so slightly, having had the garden tap disconnected. At the time I thought it was useless because it was at the front; but I could have run a hose through the house to the back garden. Now I'm reduced to filling a watering can at the kitchen sink ... I don't think the tap takes a hose fitting ... and pondering the cost of having the tap reconnected. Mind you, it raises the spectre of another winter flood disaster, so maybe not.

Whew, what a weekend. Lots of activity, lots of rest.

The yacht launch was hilarious, great fun. Not for Colin though -- he described himself as "sick with fear". His brother and father were also there. In the end Colin came and collected me and took me across to the sailing club, because they needed extra hands to help raise the mast. Then the boat was backed into the water using the club's tractor. Slight panic when it appeared the outboard wouldn't be strong enough to reverse the boat away from the shore, and we drifted scarily close to beaching. Then more panic as Nichol grappled with attaching the rudder and I fended us off the raft.

We got clear though, and the rest of the trip was relatively drama-free -- apart from Colin & Nick arguing over every single thing.

Their dad met us at the other side, and so did Anthea. She and I headed back to my place for lunch, then off to Elie despite the rain. Bertie was thrilled to be at Elie again. More than thrilled, ecstatic. So ecstatic he jumped over a barbed wire fence into a field.

Anthea thought it was hilarious; I wasn't so amused. I couldn't see whether he'd cut his feet jumping the fence (he sprang on to the top wire, which was the barbed bit), and I didn't know whether there was a gate in the field open to the road beyond. I couldn't see a gate on our side, which presented another problem -- how to get him out. Meanwhile he was bounding around the paddock like a springbok, purely happy.

I climbed over the fence and once he'd run out of steam a bit managed to get him to come. Clipped on the lead and began the long walk to find a way out. Finally we found a bit where the ground dipped under the fence, leaving a gap -- but was it big enough for 32kg of unco-operative greyhound? I bent his front legs and pushed them through; Anthea grabbed them and pulled while I pushed his skinny bum. Bingo!

He was on the lead the rest of the walk, but he didn't care because he was bushed anyway. The rain held off but it was good we left when we did -- on the drive back the rain was torrential, it was nerve-wracking because even with the wipers at full speed I couldn't see very well. Most people drove as fast as they would have if it had been dry. Terrifying.

Friday I got my wetsuit, did my recycling and washed the car. Saturday I went for a sail -- serious wind, a wild and bouncy couple of hours. I didn't capsize until the very last minute, when I was "parking", very embarrassing. Happily I had one foot on the slipway, so I didn't end up in the mud, and the boat flipped right way up easily. The wetsuit was a great buy, it really made a difference.

I was meant to go out on Saturday night, but was so whacked out by all the activity I flagged that away. When I took Bertie for a walk in the field up the back at about 8pm all his best pals were up there with their people, and we all walked round together. These days that's my kind of social event!

Sunday I worked in the front garden, it was starting to get choked with weeds.

So, all in all a very pleasant few days off, restorative. This week is busy with visitors: Annmaree and her husband are coming for lunch tomorrow and Andrew is arriving on Thursday for an overnight stay, coming back on Sunday I think (he's going to a wedding down south). Wednesday a shake-down sail in Eraser is pencilled in (pencilled in, geddit? Ha!). Saturday is the grand opening of the Forth & Clyde Canal, a big flotilla of all kinds of boats is sailing from Grangemouth led by "a beautiful 35ft fish that will transform into a spectacular fountain" according to the publicity.

Colin's boat passed its insurance survey, so it may be back on the water tomorrow. He's planning to motor it across from the yacht club to the marina at high tide, which is about lunchtime. Anthea is coming out on the bus, we're planning to walk from Elie to St Monans and back. However, if it's raining again we may have to revise that.

Friday I'm going to get a wetsuit. For years I've been sailing in track pants and a fleece, with thermals underneath if it's cold. On my feet I had canvas plimsolls. A few years ago I got a pair of dinghy boots, tight-fitting neoprene boots with zips. Instant comfort! It was so much more pleasant sailing with warm feet. Then a couple of weeks ago I was on a weekend improvers course and for the first time sailed in a wetsuit. Bliss. Not only was I much more comfortable -- warmth without bulk! -- but I didn't come away covered in bruises.

It will also be good not to come home with a bag full of wet clothes. Just the wetsuit, cagoule, boots and gloves to hose down. I might go sailing on Saturday afternoon.

Colin asked if Bertie might like to go sailing in his yacht. I had to say no -- his centre of gravity is just too high. He can't sit, he either stands or lies down. There wouldn't be room for him to lie down on deck, and he'd just fall over standing up. Plus he'd be terrified. On the whole I think he'd rather be home with a good biscuit.

A productive day -- cleaned the house, went to the doctor, walked the dog. Before all that, I printed off some information from the internet on the latest treatment for fibroids, to show the doctor. Bertie was making an odd noise, so I went to investigate. He was busy tearing chunks out of the sheepskin rug in the spare bedroom, where he sleeps. BAD dog! I remember reading somewhere that behaviour problems often don't emerge until the dog's been in your house for a month. It's been nearly two months -- I hope there are no more surprises...

He enjoyed his afternoon walk enormously. It's raining, which the rabbits seem to enjoy, and Bertie certainly prefers cool and wet weather to hot and dry. So anyway he was racing around in a hunting frenzy, finding lots of bunnies. He had a really good shot at one, and was just inches from its tail, running at full stretch, when he fell over. He was going so fast he rolled a few times. Rolled in something ghastly. I gave him a good rub-down when we got in, but I fear my newly cleaned house is right now getting grubby again. And possibly covered in bits of chewed-up sheepskin.

The visit to the doctor was good -- nice woman. She examined me, took notes from my printout and agreed to refer me to the gynaecologist once she's got the notes from my last doctor.

How annoying is this? I made an appointment with the doctor last week (women's problems, nothing serious) for this morning and was asked to take along a urine sample as I'm a new patient. So I was there for ages with a nurse, being weighed (84kg) and measured (1.something metres), having my blood pressure taken etc, and also quizzed on my medical history. (I was also interrogated about my neighbours and what happened to the lady I bought the house off -- I really am in a small town!) Finally the nurse said, "Right! So now you can go ahead and make an appointment with the doctor if you need to."

I thought I had made an appointment with the doctor.

Noooo .... I'd made an appointment to be weighed, measured, tested and interrogated.

So now I'm going to a "Well Woman Clinic" tomorrow. The thing is I don't even want to see a doctor, I just have to to get a referral to a gynaecologist at the Royal Infirmary, to ask about a new treatment I heard about on the radio. I tried to make an appointment direct, but I have to go via the GP, even though I've been before. It seems like a waste of resources to me -- certainly a waste of the doctor's time.

Forgot to mention that the weather has turned grotty, cold and dampish.

After a very very early start -- Bertie barked in my ear at 7am -- I passed an entertaining couple of hours this morning helping Colin scrub out the cockpit of his boat Eraser.


Colin and Eraser in happier times

Eraser's been off the water quite a while now, after a series of mishaps, so it was pretty grimy. But with elbow grease and some special hull-cleaning gunk we got it looking reasonable. It's having an insurance survey on Wednesday I think, and Colin's shifting it from the yacht club to the marina down the road from me on Thursday morning. He's talking about a "shake-down" sail next week -- that's where you gingerly take the boat out and see if anything falls off.

Bertie came along for the ride and was very well behaved. He amused himself for a while but quickly got bored -- he wouldn't go off on his own, which was good, but he couldn't climb up into the boat so once he'd had a look round the area he just hung around whining. I put him in the car with a biscuit and he was happy.

After that I went home to meet the man from the double-glazing firm who came to fix the seal on the door that keeps falling out. He just poked it back in -- which I've already done twice. Hmm.

I did some gardening as well, and took Bertie for another walk. He nearly caught a rabbit again. Poor thing. And nearly ran under a car on the way home, fighting to get into the road to grab what he thought was a hedgehog but was actually an old sponge.

Gullane Bents

Yesterday was sunny and windless, so Bertie and I headed for the beach. I had to go via the city anyway so kept on going and went to the Gullane Bents, which had been recommended as good for dogs. And so it was. Bertie doesn't like beaches that much -- it's too exposed, there are no rabbits, and he makes himself sick drinking seawater.

So after playing chase with some other dogs, barking at a few children and getting extremely hot, he was thrilled to get away into the dunes beyond the strand. It was wonderful, a brilliant place to walk. I take a dish and a litre of water with me on these expeditions, and he drank the lot.

We got home in the evening and I went out to get videos -- he wanted to come too. So we went for the third walk of the day, making a total of nearly four hours, including the late-night walk.

Today I'm working, bah -- it's perfect weather for sailing, too: nice breeze, hot sunshine. Heigh ho.

Tomorrow I'm helping Colin with his yacht for a couple of hours, then the double-glazing fellows are coming to fix the seal on the french doors, then I'm off to work.

Um, ok ... it seems to be working now. The other post seems to have reappeared as well.

More moaning -- yesterday, my day off, was cloudy, windy and cold. I'd booked a dinghy hire but cancelled it -- too cold, too windy. Today dawned nice and hot and sunny again, though even windier. But this afternoon a haar descended. A haar is a thick sea mist, a pale, moist blanket that envelops Edinburgh after a few days of sun. It can last several days -- a taxi driver told me he remembered one in the Sixties that stayed for six weeks. But usually it's just a day or so.

Perversely, I quite like the haar. I like the way it renders everything mysterious. It's especially effective in the Old Town, it puts a gleam on the cobbles and makes the dank closes look romantic.

I mowed the lawns today, front and back. The front can hardly be called a lawn -- it's more dandelion and daisy than grass.

I picked up my reading glasses today. I should have gone with the bifocals. The reading glasses are (surprise) brilliant for reading, but to cross the room I really have to put my distance glasses back on. I'll need a bigger handbag now.

Bertie's nature notes: Rabbits can climb trees!!! No, really, they do, Bertie's seen it with his own eyes. Also: Cats are scary. There were several in the vet's waiting room and they spat and swore when Bertie had a sniff. He retreated to the far corner on his belly.

Huh, Blogger isn't working. I'll wait until later to risk a proper entry.

This is weird ... my last post doesn't appear on the website. And it's a post about how the previous post vanished without trace .... but I know it was there at one point, because I talked to Liz and she mentioned it ....

Wow, that was spooky -- I wrote an entry moaning about work, and it's disappeared without trace ....

With the weather being so nice and it being a bank holiday weekend and cross-country footpaths being out of bounds, there are cyclists all over the roads. Great mobs of them, all garish lycra and pointy helmets, pedalling grimly along.

Driving to work today I came across one sprawled on the road next to his bike. I stopped.

"Are you ok?" I asked.

He moaned and rolled up on to his feet.

"Yeah, I'm just tired."

Yes, that really does look like fun.

I'm wearing sandals! It's been hot three days in a row!!

Bertie isn't enjoying it much -- everywhere we go is infested with children. As for home ... it's dreadful. From what I deduce, it seems that from his point of view I've gone completely mad. I sit out in the boiling sun with the french doors wide open, completely ignoring the fact that the neighbours are making threatening noises from all sides. When he tries to deal with the situation by barking, I tell him off. Is that fair? NO. Much huffing, whining and pacing goes on while I'm reading the paper.

So we are getting into a slightly different routine. In the morning the field up the back is OK -- usually his pals Amber and Cassie are there, or sometimes Chloe. He has a great belt round after the rabbits and generally enjoys himself. In the afternoon, there are usually kids up there. Today by the time I caught up with Bertie he was barking his head off and the kids were sitting in a tree screeching.

"Is he a good dog?" one of them quavered. Oh yes, I told them, restraining a slavering Bertie. He's a very good dog.

While this was going on some more kids arrived, plus a very friendly woman who unfortunately had a large and terrifying plastic carrier bag in her hand. So we went down to the marina instead and looked at boats.

I have to do some work now.

Today's Cute Dog Story isn't all that cute, it was nearly a tragedy.

In all the greyhound literature one thing is stressed: Never, ever, ever, let your dog off its leash on the road. Never.

So what did I do? Hmmm.

My excuse is that it was 2am, it was a dead end (down by the gate to the marina, which is locked at night), there was no traffic. So I let Bertie off for a little ramble. Just for a couple of minutes. Then I called him back. He looked at me, then started running down the road. Along which came a van.

I ran after him (stop laughing at the back), yelling "STOP!" Luckily he remembered what that means, and stopped dead in his tracks, in the middle of the road. The van driver stopped too, and turned off his headlights, bless him, while I grabbed Bertie, who thought this was a GREAT game. The driver and I had a great chat -- he was checking the bridge.

The reallly stupid part of this story (ok the stupid part was letting him off the lead, this is the other stupid part) is that at the beginning of the walk, Bertie had added yet another item to the growing list of Terrifying Things -- "unexpected furniture". There were three armchairs discarded outside the sheltered housing flats, and he was beside himself with fear when he saw them. Aieee! Look out! They might bite!

If only "oncoming traffic" was on the list.

This morning there was more excitement -- he expected the furniture this time, so it wasn't terrifying. What freaked him out was that when we came back from our walk, there were people sitting on the chairs!! Two special needs teenagers and their carer. Oh, and the carer was wearing sunglasses, also on the terror list. Matters were even more complicated because one of the boys got a bigger fright than Bertie and started to his feet with a yell. Terror all round, lots of soothing words.

I wonder if Bertie has high blood pressure?

PS: The weather was pretty good again today. In fact the weather's been so good the trains can't cope. An informant sent me this:

"Thousands of Scots had journeys delayed or cancelled on Wednesday after Railtrack imposed emergency speed restrictions on rail routes between South Gyle and Dalmeny, near Edinburgh.
Railtrack claimed the speed limits were vital because the early summer sunshine had caused the steel rails to warp – making it dangerous for trains to run at normal speed.
The average temperature in the area at the time when Railtrack imposed speed restrictions was just 12C with a high of 17C, and last night experts said they were amazed that such mild weather could have such devastating effects.
The restrictions led to delays on 72 train services operated by Scotrail as they were forced to trundle along the ‘overheated’ tracks at speeds of just 20mph.
Some trains took as long as 50 minutes for a journey along just three miles of track that normally takes only a few minutes.
Railtrack however refused to apologise for the delays and insisted the unseasonal sunshine was to blame.
Spokesman Simon McMillan said: ‘It is a common problem that arrives with the spring sunshine as the metal can warp when the weather heats up then cools down.
‘The speed restrictions were imposed as a precautionary measure for safety reasons and we then took action to alter the rails to stop any more problems.
‘Track metal expands in the heat, especially when sunlight falls directly on the track. The lack of wind was a problem on Wednesday, which means the track didn’t get cooled down.
He explained that rails are normally adjusted with the changing seasons to ensure that the track stays true whatever the weather, but that the unseasonal sunshine had caught them unawares."

Makes you wonder how they get on in India.

I got a tripod today for my camera, because I want to try taking some night-time shots of the bridges and the river. I love these late-night walks, it's so quiet and the river has all manner of moods.

The other night I walked under the road bridge and really wanted to take a picture from the other side. It was still and clear, but the bridge is always humming with traffic. At night the pylons fade away and it's just a beautiful curve of lights, with a delicate under-hatching of ironwork. It leaps across the river and away, a space-age promise, as if it's not just taking you to Fife but to the rocket base where you'll board a shuttle flight to Mars. Yes, I read science fiction at an impressionable age.

Further along there's the rail bridge, which has recently been floodlit. I don't like the effect much -- it's harsh, accenting the bridge's angularity rather than its sort of sinuous look. Oddly enough they floodlit it once before, for its centenary, but took down the lights after a year, and that was more successful. However, the new lighting still makes pretty patterns on the water and I'd like to try and photograph it.

Coming soon: the whole roll of pictures I took of guess who. He looks gorgeous, of course.

Getting the photos developed was something of an ordeal. Over a week ago I took the film to the place I normally go to. But there was a queue and I was illegally parked, so I thought well I get it done later. Hah, yeah right.

Finally on Monday, I zipped in to a Boots for the overnight service. But that wasn't going to be ready until Wednesday, so I said well ok I'll have the three-day service (there's no two-day). So this morning I went in on the way to get my hair done (my hairdresser's a dog man) and oh dear, they couldn't find the photos. According to the electronic system they had been developed, but they weren't anywhere to be found. They took a note of my name and number and said they'd ring.

After the hair appointment I went back to Boots. Still no sign of the pictures, and also no sign of the man who'd taken my details OR of my details. As I stood watching the assistant search the bin of packets of photos, a woman standing patiently waiting to be served said to me: "Don't you just wish you could have a look yourself?" And it's true, I had been thinking that very thing. You know how sometimes you can just tell someone's not being thorough? Frustrating. So I left my details again and went home.

Took Bertie for a burn up on the hill, where we met Chloe and her owner. Bertie and Chloe get on famously, though Bertie's inclined to sniff her bum just that little bit too long. Once she'd sorted him out on that score they settled down and played nicely, while the owner and I chatted. I'd taken my mobile up there, and sure enough Boots phoned to say they'd found the photos. Apparently the packet had slipped to the bottom of the bin, it was there all the time. Grrrr.

When I arrived half an hour later they were full of apologies and gave me a 50% discount, so I consented to be gracious. But it did make me wish I'd given in to my gut feeling and just barged in to look for myself.

Amusing Bertie story: At 2am this morning we were walking along the High St when something caught his attention in a big way. When I looked at what he was staring at, all I could see was a big splash of something darkish, like spilled soft drink. Bertie was acting spooked/interested/puzzled, sniffing and staring though, so I had a closer look. What was it? Dried blood? Fox pee? Alien pee?

I noticed there was a kind of texture to it and peered closer.

Ants. Dozens of tiny, tiny ants, barely visible.

It must have looked so weird, a woman and a dog at 2am, staring intently at an empty footpath, then the woman laughing out loud.

Bertie and I set out for a walk:

Happy May, everyone! It being May, we are now having our summer, which lasts between two days and two weeks and is referred to constantly until September in remarks like "But it was nice for a while in May, remember that?" So far we've had two days, yesterday and today. It's hot, sunny and gorgeous. Flowers are bursting out everywhere -- the narcissi in my front garden are finally out.

It wasn't hot and sunny at the weekend, however, because that was still April. I did a sailing course at the marina, dinghy improvers, and it was superb. There was just enough wind and the weather, while cold, wasn't foul. It didn't rain, and on Sunday afternoon the sky was a perfect blue, dotted with big white puffy clouds, like cartoon clouds.


Wayfarer

There were six of us on the course, plus two instructors. Saturday morning we took out three dinghies, Wayfarers (see pic above), sailed around and around a triangle of buoys and discovered we were all about the same level of crapness. In the afternoon we had a bit of theory and a go in a "static" boat set up on tyres in the boatshed. Then we went back out on the water and found we had all improved remarkably. We did coming alongside (speeding up and slowing down, basically), which I managed really well.

Sunday morning we were out in the Wayfarers again, this time with spinnakers, a tricky business. Then in the afternoon we changed into wetsuits and took out two single-handers, both Topazes (see below) and two bigger dinghies, Laser Stratos this time, and swapped over. I was mainly in a Topaz, enjoying it too -- it's what I'll mainly be sailing in this year. But then Anna collected me in the inflatable & took me for a joyride before depositing me in a Stratos with Marilyn. What a fantastic boat that is! It's brand new, which added to the thrill, but it's also light and responsive, really good to sail.


Topaz


Laser Stratos

I'm also quite sold on the idea of sailing in a wetsuit. Marilyn was the only other woman on the course (apart from the instructors) and we got quite hysterical hopping around getting ourselves squeezed into the suits. But once I managed to get the zip up, I found it really comfy, and warm too. I may lash out and get one. It's rarely ever too hot on the Forth for a wetsuit!

Monday I went and did some more gardening with Chad, the colleague who's been ill. He's feeling a lot better so he did some light hoeing while I did the heavier spadework. It rained a bit, but nothing serious. I came away with a great haul of produce: parsnips, leeks, rhubarb and some more currant plants. Tuesday Philippa (cousin Brian's daughter) came to lunch and to say goodbye. She's off on a tour of Scotland for a week, then away back to NZ via several months in Africa. After she left I got stuck in to my own garden, weeding and planting. I began digging up the deceased fuschia, but discovered signs of life -- tiny green shoots emerging from the root. So I quickly replanted it, hope it survives.

Today I took Bertie on a visit to the cat and dog home. He found it deeply alarming, he wouldn't go in at first. He was recognised and much fussed over -- he's put on a little weight and his coat is much softer and shinier, he's looking really good. I was there to collect another 15kg bag of dog food, he's nearly finished the first one.

On then to the optician, where I picked up my new glasses and dropped off my old ones to be turned into -- reading glasses. I'm old, it's official.

Bertie attracts lots of attention in town -- people literally stop and stare, or rush up and ask questions. "Magic dog!" one fellow shouted. He is, he's magic. Poor dog, he hated it though -- too hot, too many people, too much traffic. He couldn't wait to get back to the car.

Uh oh ... I see big black clouds looming. A two-day summer then. Ah well.

tinker tinker tinker

Busy busy busy weekend (by my slacker standards), nothing like having a visitor (Liz) to rouse me out of my rural fastness. On Saturday we went on the Maid of the Forth launch trip to Inchcolm. I thought it was mainly a launch trip, but it turned out to be mainly Inchcolm. We had an hour and a half there, tramping around looking at ruins and seagulls. Favourite bit: squeezing up a tiny, insanely claustrophobic stone spiral staircase and a flight of steep creaky wooden steps to reach the top of the tower. It has a dangerously low outer wall and oddly the protective railing is on the inner wall. An anxious father yelled at his 6-ish daughter: "Hold on to the rail, darling!" as she raced ahead. She humoured him by trailing a finger along the uprights.

Saturday night we went to A Hard Day's Night, major nostalgia fest for me. Those sweet boys, they were so nice and clean and well-spoken it's hard to believe they were seen as a threat to civilisation.

Sunday was wet and soggy but we stirred ourselves and took Bertie for a run on Arthur's Seat, which he loved of course. He covered four or five times the ground we did, and at top speed most of the way. After a rest break back home, we set out again -- this time for dinner (at Maison Bleue) followed by a ghost walk.

The tour started out at St Giles but moved briskly to South Niddrie St, the close on the other side of where I used to live! I used to look out the kitchen window at the tour groups standing below, listening to theatrical lies. And here I was in the tour group, and someone else lives in my old flat. Weird. It was interesting to see what the company has done with the vaults under South Bridge -- I noticed the tour guide didn't mention that their excavations had reduced the bridge's strength by an estimated 18%. Not a comforting statistic when you're right underneath the bridge! It was a good tour though, very interesting and some cracking yarns.

Today Liz left on the train and poor Bertie is in mourning. He loves her soooo much! And so do I. She is lovely! Oh, and if you're reading this Liz, you left your phone transformer thingie behind and I'll mail it to you. Thanks for the phone money, you're sweet!

I have to do more work.

Hey, it worked! (See below.) I'm chuffed. Expect more pictures.

I was also chuffed with myself over another achievement today: I mended the bed!! It was quite complicated, I had to disassemble the frame, reposition some metal bits and put the whole thing back together. It's a slat-type bed, and the plank down the middle keeping the slats from springing loose had ripped out of one end. Bertie paced around nervously the whole time I was working on it, presumably afraid that this burst of strange activity meant yet another drastic change in his life.

I also cleaned some more -- the house is gleaming! -- and even mowed the lawn in between snow showers. Yes, it snowed. Hard to scotch some of these scotch myths.

Bertie had a good day too, apart from the bed thing. He's off the sick list and had his first go at the rabbits for ages. Don't worry though, the rabbits are in no danger. First one dashed under a bush briefly, then sped out and across the field to a patch of blackberry. Bertie saw it go under the bush, but didn't see it leave, even though I was pointing at it and shouting, "It went that way, you idiot!" The second one took him completely by surprise but he hurtled after it gamely before giving up. Chasing the third one he disappeared, and to my horror came back with blood all around his mouth. He'd only been out of sight for a couple of minutes, not long enough to eat a rabbit, surely?

Turned out he'd scratched his chin on a bramble -- it was HIS blood.

Some boys were up in the field this morning, working on the cycle track they're creating. Two were digging out a dip in one of the paths and a younger one was chopping back hawthorn and blackberry along the main path. They're making it quite elaborate, with jumps and hollows, a proper circuit. I hope there's not friction with dog-walkers over it -- I think it's great even though when the kids are biking around there I have to put Bertie on the lead in case he's run over; it's a good safe place for kids to play and they're being really enterprising in creating a run. But people can get huffy if they see kids having fun that hasn't been "properly" organised.

I keep forgetting to take my rubbish bag up there -- it's horribly easy to fill one up, no effort at all. Next time.

An experiment:

Lovely sunny day and here I am at work. Sigh. I've been house-prouding today; went to the supermarket, cleaned up a bit, thought about mowing the lawn (one case where it's not the thought that counts). At the supermarket I bought a new cleaning product, As Recommended By Anthea. "I can't believe we're having a conversation about cleaning products," I said. "No, but it's REALLY good!" And so it is. It's a funny light little mop thingie, with little thin cloths that attach easily, and you just waft it around the floor in a half-hearted way and it cleans completely by magic. It hardly feels like housework at all.

Also went for a couple of short walks with Bertie, one of which was very entertaining. First of all we met two old girls from up the street, one is Florence (from memory), the other Bridie. Bridie has a short stout terrier, Butch, who growled at Bertie. "It's just that he's been attacked," explained Bridie. "You know the woman with the three dogs? One of them attacked Butch." After a lovely chat we parted company. And who should we meet on our way home but the woman with the three dogs -- the chow and the two akitas. We stopped for a chat, in the course of which I mentioned Bertie's sweet, submissive nature. "Not like a lot of those little dogs!" she said. "There's one in the street, very aggressive .. mind you, she [indicating an akita] attacked him so I don't suppose he's so ready to have a go at a bigger dog..."

Heh.

One more cute doggie story: Bertie has twigged that I'm feeding the birds with, like, FOOD. He was hopping around the garden on his hinders this morning trying to get the peanut feeders off the tree.

Happy Easter.

Bertie's Weekend of Bliss turned to Weekend of Boredom with yesterday's visit to the vet. He was there for his vaccination shot but I mentioned the sore leg and now he's on a course of anti-inflamatories and confined to quarters apart from toilet walks. I'm not popular.

I had Wednesday and Thursday off as well as Friday, so we went for a super-brilliant romp from Elie to St Monans and back, along the coast path. The only bad bit for Bertie was that I refused to magically open the fence to let him at some slow-looking rabbits hopping around a field. Not only that, I put him on the leash and hauled him away from the fence. Spoil sport.

Thursday I did some gardening for Chad, very pleasant -- it was cloudy and cool, perfect for gardening, I reckon. Friday there was the visit to the vet. Not only does he have the sore leg, Bertie has conjunctivitis as well! I'm a bad owner, I hadn't even noticed. I have to bathe his eyes in warm salty water and put ointment in them (both of which he hates). After lunch Anthea and I went back to Ikea for more shelves etc. I spent the evening building things and rearranging things. The results are practical but not attractive, I have to say. Well, too bad.

Today I took Bertie on a slightly extended toilet walk -- we went along the jetty at the marina, which we both enjoyed. It was very windy, and choppy with it, so there weren't many people out. A lot of sailors are still busy getting their boats ready for the off, so the marina's abuzz with activity. I bought a tide table at the chandlery.

Back to work tomorrow, ugh. Only one page though, so should be ok.

Today I found out Bertie's racing name: Hardtobehumble. For those who don't know it, here's the song:

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way
I can't wait to look in the mirror
Cuz I get better lookin each day

To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
But I'm doin' the best that I can

There's more, about girlfriends and skin tight blue jeans, it's a hoot. Oh and it's country, in case you couldn't tell.

I tried the name out on him (not exactly catchy: "Here, Hardtobehumble!") and it didn't raise a response. So Bertie it is.

The Retired Greyhounds Trust also told me he's Irish, and was born in 1997 -- the day after my birthday!!! Spoooooky.

I went clothes shopping today, sigh. I got a black silk shirt (handwash only -- why do I torment myself with such garments?) and two t-shirts. Marks & Spencer is so depressing now. I used to get most of my clothes there, but they changed their sizing system with a great tantara and now nothing fits me. "I'm normal!" squealed the fat woman in the M&S advert, standing naked on a hilltop. She's naked because M&S changed their sizing system and nothing fits her. It's maddening. I'm wearing size 16 M&S jeans, but today tried on a size 18 shirt that was a joke. I could barely get it buttoned up, and it was so tight in the sleeves and across the back that I couldn't raise my arms. I left feeling monstrous. I got the shirt in Wallis, which doesn't make a big deal about its bigger sizes.

I don't think the shopping experience was unrelated to the road rage incident I got involved in a little later on. The road rager was another driver, a White Van Man, but I wound my window down and gave him a piece of my mind. He was punching the window of the car in front of me at the time, so it was quite reckless of me to have a go. He started to come at me (I wound my window up so fast I nearly sprained my wrist) but backed off -- I guess when he saw how enormously fat I am (smirk).

You want details? Oh go on then. When I became aware of the white van it was driving very, very slowly down the Cowgate ahead of the Polo (or similar) in front of me. Polo man tooted. White Van Man slowed further. Polo tooted again. White Van stopped without signalling. Polo signalled and pulled round ahead of White Van. White Van accelerated in a cloud of black smoke, sitting on Polo's tail, flashing his brights, generally acting like a maniac. Then, in the face of heavy oncoming traffic, White Van pulled round Polo at speed and stopped sharply in front of him. White Van Man got out and started ranting and pounding on the Polo, which is when I wound my window down and let him have it.

Men are WEIRD.

I did enjoy venting my rage though, it felt great. And without endangering anyone but myself! I'm so socially responsible. It was right by the close where I used to live as well, so conceivably my old neighbours were there saying, man she hasn't changed a bit.

Tomorrow I'm going to Elie, on the Fife coast. It has lovely beaches for Bertie to run on. I'll take a picnic lunch. It won't rain, it just won't.

Greyhound Gallery Lots of pictures of greyhounds, from ancient to modern.

Forgot to mention a frustration from yesterday: I hauled the two packets of planks to the carpet warehouse only to have my refund request rejected. They belong to the insurance company, ha, of course! So the firm can't give ME the money. So I had to haul them back again. Grinding my teeth because I still haven't heard back from the insurance company regarding my letter about the £100 they owe me.

Once again: where is the karmic kickback for being such an honest, upright citizen over the Persian rug? Don't tell me the universe is using it to offset previous sins! Unfair, seriously unfair.

The Guardian | Simple as falling off a blog For those of you who've asked about Blogger, here's a good article explaining it all. Get blogging! It's fun!

In other news: today I visited Chad (a colleague, not the country), who's just been in hospital. Anthea came too, and I took Bertie along for the ride.

Yet another bad idea.

Poor Bertie, life is just one trauma after another. This time the horrorshow was coming up to Chad's house and seeing his three huskies lined up in the picture window, all howling and yowling and generally making like wolves. There was no way in the world Bertie was going in to that house, no way. So I had to take him back to the car and leave him there for an hour or so.

I moved the car in to some shade -- the sun had come out -- and left the windows cracked open, but I still worried. Greyhounds can't regulate their body heat and are particularly prone to heat exhaustion. I stopped at a pet shop on the way home to get him some dog biscuits as an apology -- and to give him the thrill of walking down aisles loaded with sacks of dog food, treats and toys (Britain, doncha love it, you can take your dog anywhere).

I'm not doing too badly in the Getting My Life Organised business. I've drawn up a few lists, sent off for a quote for fencing the back yard, done nearly all my laundry and ... um, walked the dog.

The A_ward This looks interesting. It's a journal ring, one of the journals I read regularly (The Jon-Jon Diaries) is on it.

"We want journals that don't drone on about John and Sally's relationship going downhill or how ignorant your parents are. We want journals that include the world around us. In writing, in pictures, or both.

"There's a world behind that computer monitor of yours, and on the A_ward we want to hear about it. Observers, that's what we need. Journals with an eye for everyday madness. Or beauty. And the consequences of it on whatever personal level."

I love reading online journals, there are three or four I read slavishly. The ones I like pretty much follow the criteria above. I'm too chicken to write like that, because reading journals regularly like I do, I've heard some real car-crash stories about the consequences. One guy lost his job directly through stuff he wrote in his journal, lots of people get hate-mail from total strangers.

So from me, pretty much all you will get is DIY, cute dog stories and weather reports. Oh, and sailing stories once I'm out on the water. You'll just have to imagine all the real exciting, juicy stuff I'm leaving out ...

Another rabbit encounter: way up ahead I saw a rabbit speed across the path, followed by Bertie. Two beats later, the rabbit ran back across the path, followed once again by Bertie. I couldn't believe my eyes -- the rabbit doubled back and Bertie STILL didn't catch it. Mind you, he does have a slightly sore leg. Poor dog!

Liz is coming to stay! Yay! I've started tidying the guest room, and at the weekend I'll finally hang the blind. Unfortunately Bertie now regards it as his room. Hope Liz doesn't mind. He doesn't smell doggy, but his farts are unbelievable, you could use them as a chemical weapon.

I've got two packets of planks to take back to the Carpet Warehouse -- I haven't heard back from the insurance company about the £100 they owe me, but if I can get a refund on the planks I'll call it quits. At the moment it's just finding time to get the planks to the shop; I've had them in the boot for two days. It's on tomorrow's agenda. Along with getting wood for shelves in the bedroom, visiting a colleague who's just had his gall bladder removed, doing some washing and of course walking the dog.

And reformatting my hard drive, hahahaha!

Cute dog stories, awwwww, sweeeet!!! I'm embarrassed. But what the hell, in cyberspace you can't hear anyone groan "please, no more".

OK on the morning walk, we encountered a rabbit right by the steps up to the field/scrubbery. It jumped away slowly, stopping to rub its ears. Bertie could NOT believe his eyes. He didn't go mad, he didn't jerk on the lead, he just stood there, his eyes bugging out, until it sauntered off into the undergrowth. Given his emerging scaredy-cat tendencies, I can only assume he's learning something about perspective. Like in the Father Ted episode where Ted is holding a toy cow and explaining to Father Dougal: "This cow is small. That cow [pointing out the window] is far away." So maybe Bertie's thinking "Cripes, that rabbit is HUGE!"

Another cute dog story isn't funny: he's got a sore foot, ow ow ow, it hurts! It really hurts! It may be a sprain. He was fine on the morning walk, but suddenly suffering later in the day. It was a traumatic day all round -- on top of the giant rabbit and the sore leg, there were men in the garden next door cutting up and taking away the lawn. I had to escort him out in to the garden, the sook.

One more cute dog story, oh go on, you know you want one! On the morning walk we came across a Yorkshire terrier, tiny little thing. It stood up on its hind legs and put its front feet on Bertie's chest so it could sniff nose-to-nose!

Ulp ... it has been quite a while, hasn't it? You'll be glad to hear I had a productive two days off and my home is not now a health hazard. The bed is still broken, the computer's still playing up, but at least the floors are reasonably clean, and the shelves (including a new one from Ikea) are dusted and full of books. Not quite an Ikea catalogue illustration but a definite improvement.

I did have a go at the computer -- this will amuse any geeks reading (ie Liz and Ken), others can skip to the next paragraph. First I backed up what I needed on the Sparq drive, then gathered the Windows CD and all the hardware installation disks etc. I checked out the startup disks I had & none of them worked. (That was actually because the CMOS was set to boot C then A rather than A then C, but I didn't think to check that at first.) So I set out to make a floppy boot with the CD driver on it. Looong loooong ago when I bought my computer there was a problem with the CD drive & they sent me a floppy with the right driver on it. Now, I have been having a little problem with it again lately, in that it doesn't always install properly. So I thought, ahah! I'd better reinstall it now using the disk, before I make the startup disk. Why? I don't know, I just did. It reinstalled all right, but a) it called itself D, which was actually the Sparq drive and b) it did something to config.sys that eventually buggered the memory or whatever so it kept freezing and hanging. In between hell and high water, I reinstalled the Sparq drive. After high water I was reduced to rebooting into DOS using the incomplete startup disk (and fixing the CMOS setting) and harking back to the mid-90s: oh how quaint!! No pictures! I managed to track down the Edit application and rem out the naughty line in config.sys and got the whole shonky system moving again. I still have the original instability -- something to do with the new printer -- so will eventually have to bite the bullet and reformat the hard drive. Or I might take the opportunity to get a new, bigger hard drive so that when Ken visits again he'll have somewhere to put all his Stuff. Also it should keep me creaking along until I have time to build a new box in the winter.

Back in the real world, a dog was crying. There was a big scary monster outside, going WoooOOooooo!!! Right outside from his bed! Yup, my dog is scared of the wind whistling in the wires. Poor Bertie. I had just turned on the television -- his signal to go to bed, since he loathes TV. He tromped out, and then suddenly there was a yelp and a great crashing as he frantically tried to run on the laminate and fell over. We went out to the back yard to investigate, but the monster wasn't there. We came back in, and there it was again! He paced around miserably, whining, and finally settled on the bare floor in the far corner of the dining room, as far as he could get from the noise. I moved his duvet in there, and eventually had to move his dishes as well, because he won't go near his former "bedroom".

He's finally started coming upstairs, but that's traumatic too. He can get up just fine, but coming down ... I have to coax him, step by trembling step. The angle is too steep, the treads too narrow. I had to put a mat at the bottom -- he used to come off in a painful spreadeagled clatter of limbs.

Otherwise he's fine, enjoying his outings and generallly behaving himself. He's not in much danger of catching a rabbit: he gives them too much of a head start & can't get into the bramble patches they hide in. I'm not worried about rabbits, it's cats. If he caught a cat I'd feel dreadful. But I don't want to muzzle him either. Hmm. I've got an extending lead and I keep him on that more and more, particularly on the walk above town that backs on to houses. The field behind my place is ok, I think.

A little project I'm considering is rubbish collection. I spent a few weeks in California once, roaming the countryside in a tiny hire car. I was wandering around a strange and beautiful area of sand dunes and little lakes, when I met a man walking his dog and stopped to chat. He told me the area was once where the local hoons came to race their off-road vehicles, it was a mess. Concerned locals got together to save it, and this fellow got interested. He started going there for walks, and was disturbed at the amount of rubbish lying around. He decided to do something about it himself. Every time he went for a walk, he took big rubbish bags with him and filled them. "After a while it was only one bag. Then a smaller bag. Now I only take a little one, just in case." For him, the payoff was not only a more pleasant place to walk in, but someone to walk with him -- he found a litter of abandoned puppies, one of which he adopted.

So anyway, the places where Bertie and I walk are an appalling mess -- garbage everywhere. So I thought I might follow that bloke's example and take a bin-bag with me. I even thought about talking the council into lending me one of their rubbish-gripper thingies, so I wouldn't have to stoop all the time.

I'll keep you posted.

Bertie's lesson for the day: Do NOT, under any circumstances, run on to the railway line. You will be yelled at and have to spend the rest of the walk on a tight leash.

I did some grocery shopping and carried another couple of dozen CDs downstairs. Everything is filthy and disordered. Bertie's duvet cover is muddy and covered in dog hair and crumbs, and so is the floor (we had a long, involved argument about whether he was going to eat his DentaBone on the persian rug or on the duvet). The study is still a tip. The bed is still broken (did I mention the bed broke?) and the broken bits are still lying where they fell, the pot plants are drying out, the spare bedroom is a storage dump, the bathroom floor is covered in muddy clothes. And it's only been a week! In a month they'll call the environmental health people in with masks and rubber gloves.

Tomorrow Anthea and I are going to Ikea to sort our lives out. It promises pretty much that in the catalogue. The people look so happy, their houses are lickably clean. All their stuff is organised. All we need is shelves, and the rest will follow.

Sum total of work towards tidying the house today: plugged in the stereo. That's it. I really must start moving stuff down, but I'm so tired! All this walking, walking, walking ...

Two shortish walks today (one hour and twenty minutes), with plenty of off-leash romping. Bertie finally got the chance to chase a real live rabbit and made a hash of it. The rabbit got a head start and fled into a bramble patch.

I had another look at his ear tattoos and realised I'd read one of them upside down -- it says TV, not A.I. That would make him three, I think, which seems about right.

Next project on hand is building some shelves in my bedroom and in the livingroom, in the chimney alcoves. I'm going to get bare boards, sand and varnish them, and fix them with blocks of wood rather than brackets. I also need more freestanding bookshelves --- Ikea for that, I think. Then some kind of lighter drapes for the french doors. Oh, and I need to move all the furniture and books and stuff back down from upstairs and sort out the study and reformat the hard drive and reinstall all the software.

I'll start as soon as I've walked the dog ...

Dog ownership is wearing me out. Today we went for two walks. The first, to the field up behind my place, was a happy one. The second was a mistake. I was going to a farm a fair step away, to buy some eggs, and I thought, I'll walk and take the dog.

Bad idea.

First, the farm is on a main road. Second, the road is bounded by fields, wide open fields where rabbits frolic freely. So I found myself in charge of a big, strong dog, hysterical with excitement, leaping, twisting and lunging to get free, while huge lorries thundered past inches away. Eventually we made it to the farm intact. More excitement: the farm's hens are free range, as in walking around in the yard, on the roadside, everywhere. Second, the farm's extremely friendly Newfoundland dog looks pretty much like a bear -- size, shape, fur. "I LOVE YOU!!!" he bellowed at Bertie from the end of his chain. "Can we go home now?" quivered Bertie, doing his best to ignore the Newfie and eyeing the hens.

I bought eggs, and we made the nightmare journey back, Bertie gagging and jerking on the lead like a lunatic, me sweating and swearing.

Tomorrow we're going to the field and that's IT. I'm shattered.

Did I mention the floor is finished? Dougie and Bob came on Sunday as promised. I'd forgotten about daylight saving, of course, so as far as I was concerned, they arrived at 7.30am. Bloody hell. Bertie was appalled at the noise, so we went out for a long walk. When we got back, the fridge, washing machine and stove were all in the hallway and there was even more noise.

Eventually the blokes finished, packed up and left. After they'd driven off in their van, Bertie went to the front door and barked VERY LOUDLY. Huh, they won't be back any time soon!

The house is still a tip -- I'm too tired from dogwalking to cart stuff back down from upstairs. OK, I carried a dozen CDs down today. Should only take a few years to tidy up at that rate.

I had a reply from the greyhound trust regarding Bertie's ear tattoos. Apparently if the letters I told them are correct, he's 18 years old! So I think I've read it wrong. What I thought was A is possibly R, which would make him about five. They're like cars, one of the letters represents the year of birth.

Elvis Costello tells us which 500 records we absolutely must have to be happy. I have some of them, mainly his jazz and classical selections. The one I most want to listen to that I've never heard of is Agnes Bernelle: Father's Lying Dead on the Ironing Board. Eh?

A lot of the older stuff I was never a fan of in the first place -- Captain Beefheart, the Flying Burrito Brothers -- but some of the nostalgia selections make me think, yeah, I'd like to hear that again. Like the Four Tops, the Hollies, Prince ... I haven't got a single Prince album, how about that!

Yesterday was dog-day: my first day as a dog owner. It all went quite smoothly -- the dog (no name yet, see below) was ok in the car, is house-trained (or kennel-trained), enjoyed all his walks enormously and ate his dinner eventually (after first trying to "bury" it). He's bigger than I'd thought -- very tall and strong -- but that hasn't been a problem. He's ok on the lead generally, understands the word STOP. A bit nervous of cars and over-interested in anything that looks like it could possibly be a rabbit. No barking at all, though he did give a yowl when he saw the neighbour's cat in the back yard.

He had a new experience last night -- television. He happened to be standing in the doorway when I switched it on and he got a real fright. He stared at it, eyes bugging out, then backed slowly out of the room. Just an advert, nothing like Animal Hospital.

Today it's raining and when I let him out this morning he came straight back in & shook himself ostentatiously. I had to get dressed and take him out, stand over him until he went to the toilet. He's been joed out on his duvet ever since.

All Things Must Pass George Harrison's official site. "Not for the faint of bandwidth or resolution".

Everyone in New Zealand please watch out for bits of Mir. I think it's very decent of Helen to try and find those American tuna-fishers, good on her.

One more sleep and I'm a dog owner! I'm as excited as an excited person.

I still haven't done anything about tidying the house after the flooring onslaught -- why bother when it's only going to get dusty and dirty again? Next week will do. Tonight I'll set up the dog's "room" -- the wide part of the hallway by the back door. Bed on one side, food dishes on the other. I meant to get a piece of board for the stairgate but forgot. I could always cut a few bits of floorboard to size and slot them in I guess. This is to keep the dog downstairs until I'm sure he's toilet trained. But if he's lived in kennels he might not even know about stairs.

Leading suggestions for a new name: Bing (my favourite) and Kuri (Pinky's suggestion; Maori for dog). Pinky dismissed Jack and Finn McCool as too fashionable. So we're looking for something that is even MORE fashionable, ie fashionably unpopular. How awful if I called him something really great and it immediately became popular. There's this sort of trajectory to fashion, isn't there -- you start out with the situation that no-one in their right mind would name their child Mabel -- it's a granny's name, musty and mothballed. And you end up with kindie kids being Mabel C. and Mabel F. because there are so many of them. It goes rare/unpopular/uncool, uncommon/unpopular/cool, more common/more popular/still cool, common/popular/uncool, common/unpopular/uncool and back to the start. Also there's the age thing -- if your granny and her friends are all Mabel you name your baby Chantelle; if your granny's Chantelle you call your baby Mabel.

I'd better do some work.

Bad news on the floor front: it's not finished. Heavy sigh. Well, I thought Dougie was being optimistic. They're coming back next Sunday (at 8.30am! again!) to do the kitchen and finish off the beading in the rest of the downstairs. It does look better, I guess, and it certainly feels better. I can go downstairs in bare feet without risking frostbite.

I'm going to go ahead and get the dog on Thursday ... by Sunday he should be settled in enough not to freak out completely when strangers start destroying the kitchen. We'll go for a drive up to St Andrews or something, let Dougie and Bob get on with it. I went to visit him today, took a couple of photos which I'll put on the website once I get them developed. He was quite nervy but not in a snappy way, just trembling and starting at sudden movements. He is sooo tall, and elegant and beautiful. He got very excited when we left, thought he was going too, which was sad -- "see you on Thursday" means absolutely nothing to a dog!

Any name suggestions welcome: he's called Bertie at the home but honestly does not seem Bertie-ish. I like Finn, after Finn McCool, the Irish hero who built the Giant's Causeway so his girlfriend Staffa could get home to the Western Isles. I think one-syllable names are easier for dogs to pick up. He certainly doesn't react to Bertie. The woman who took us to his kennel asked if I was keeping the name. "Errr, I'm not sure..." I said. "I named him," she said, and I was glad I'd been diplomatic. She said she really likes greyhounds, and she's adopting one herself when she has a holiday, in June. So I gather from all that that she had wanted Bertie herself.

I did get some pots and plants on Saturday: I planted some lily bulbs (stargazer) and a little daisy bush. I also got seed trays and seeds for lobelias, aquelegias (sp?), night scented stock and nicotiana. Eventually I'll plant them, and the rocket seed too. The rocket is planted directly into the ground, I need to work a bit more on the bed before it's ready for that.

Brrrr ... I just got in from planting the blackcurrants, pardon me while I brush the snow off my jersey. Yup, real snow.

Meanwhile Dougie and Bob are beavering away laying the flooring. Mess, noise, Forth FM, cheeky chat, the works. They thought I was hilarious, gardening in the snow.

I have to go in to town in a bit, to collect my camera from work. I took it into the office rather than leave it in the car, ha ha -- in the excitement of gathering up the pots of blackcurrants I left it under the desk. Completely forgot about it until I was almost asleep, don't you hate those sudden blinding revelations late at night! I got up and phoned the security guard, got him to go and get it. I imagine he found it, too bad for me if he didn't.

I went back to the Cat and Dog Home today to reserve Bertie, just in case someone else claimed him before I do next week. There was a bit of hemming and hawing -- they don't usually reserve dogs for more than a day or so. But their logic was skewed: because greyhounds aren't the most popular dogs, if someone wants one they want to be able to say yes right away. And if it's reserved they can't. But it's reserved because I want it! They relented, seeing Bertie's been there a while, and I've got until next Thursday afternoon to pick him up. I couldn't go and visit him though, because it was closing time. They gave me some leaflets produced by the Retired Greyhound Trust, lots of detailed information about diet and care, and how to train your dog not to chase cats.

Every dog will chase a cat, but greyhounds can actually catch them.

The planks, underlay etc arrived today so it's all go for Dougie and Bob tomorrow. Oh joy.

Chad brought the blackcurrant and raspberry cuttings in, so I'll plant them in the morning. If the boys seem to be getting on all right I'll go out for a mooch around gardening centres. I'm thinking of getting some big tubs and pots for the patio and around the top of the retaining wall.

The wall itself I'm considering covering in mosaic -- I asked at the tile shop about offcuts and broken tiles, and they said they'll give me a load for nothing. I'd love to try a big doodly patchwork extravaganza, and if the tiles are free, that's great. I could add in bits of mirror and broken stuff I've collected as well. Andrew once gave me a beautiful ceramic seahorse, after we'd been to Barcelona and I was thinking of Gaudi-esque tilework for the bathroom in my old flat. "You could break it and use it for that," he suggested. I kept it on the windowsill, meaning to knock a nail in and hang it properly -- and one day caught it with the towel and it smashed in a zillion bits. I've got the bits in a bag. I've also got the bits of a Waipu tile of a cat with a jug of cream. That tile's been broken three times and repaired twice I think. I bought a new one last time I was in NZ, this time in a wooden frame.

And of course now I'm a prospective dog owner I'll be checking out pet shops for all the kit: collar, lead, toys, chews, brushes, worm tablets. I've got a spare duvet he can have to sleep on. He'll be downstairs by the back door, there's a perfect dog-sized area down there. Ooo, I'm so excited!

Madness in the news: you know the Mir is coming down soon? (Of course you do if you're in the Southern Hemisphere -- you're in the crash zone!) Well the Japanese in the area the debris will pass over are going to be told to stay indoors for 40 minutes. But we're also told that the big chunks of space station will be travelling at such a speed they can penetrate 6ft of concrete. So unless your house has a concrete roof 6ft 6in thick, you're doomed if it all goes horribly wrong. At least if you're outside you can duck.

I've picked out the dog I want, and all going well he'll move in next week. He's a greyhound and is white with a brindle patch on his face. The Cat and Dog Home got him as a stray but he's an ex-racer -- he has an ID number tattoed on his ears. The home has had him on a special diet to build him up, but he's still quite bony. Very tall, quiet but alert and friendly, and apparently playful once he gets to know you. Good with other dogs but will chase cats. His name at the home is Bertie, but he doesn't reallly look like a Bertie.

After chosing Bertie yesterday I went to see Best in Show, to see how demented I'll become once I'm a dog person. Yes, that'll be me in the pet shop screeching: "That's not a bee! It's a parrot!! You don't know my dog!"

Today was a completely wasted day, spent waiting for the carpet warehouse blokes to deliver the flooring. Their excuse: "The lorry isn't co-operating." They're coming at 10am tomorrow now. While waiting I ferried more stuff upstairs, so the house now looks ghastly everywhere. Every room is either horribly empty or ludicrously crammed. Except the toilet and the bathroom, they're pretty normal.

I just want it all to be over so I can relax and enjoy my home. But a chore on tomorrow's agenda is collecting some tile samples for the kitchen. I went into the shop yesterday to look at tiles and it was a nightmare. They quoted me for an average sort of price for the actual tiles, but of course I have such exquisite taste there was nothing in that price range I liked. My favourites were the Delft tiles, £13 EACH, never mind price per square metre. The small, plain, multicoloured tiles I'd admired were almost twice the quoted price. The cheaper tiles all have a tic: wobbly edges, "antiqued" effect, "artisan" finish. Ick, a tic. I spent almost an hour in the shop, which is small but jammed with display boards, and finally found a couple of candidates: thick, chunky-looking "biscuit" tiles, and a range of fairly inoffensive pastels. The biscuit tiles only come in a few colours: black, white, cream, blue and green. They were displayed in checks, and I imagine that could look good -- black and white, or cream and blue. They would be slightly retro. Hmmm.

Just to complicate matters the man said it would be ok if I got the tiles elsewhere, the quote for labour would be the same. So that widens the search to a massive number of tile emporia, including Fired Earth in Glasgow and the dreaded arty place in the High Street.

Chad says he'll bring the blackcurrant cuttings in tomorrow, and maybe a raspberry cane as well, so I'll be able to garden on Saturday while Dougie and Bob do their thing indoors. Unless it rains, of course, in which case I'll hide upstairs.

Gardening frenzy today: I moved two more hydrangea bushes to the front, where they'll probably wither and die from lack of sunlight. It's north-facing, and they're tucked in behind the fence so they won't even get all the morning sun. Hah! Take that you ... plant. I'm sure hydrangeas are lovely in some people's eyes. Not mine. They're old-lady plants (not that I have anything against old ladies of course). These ones are especially manky -- insipid not-quite-blue with a tink of pink [tink? that was meant to be tinge, but I prefer tink] and feeble spindly stalks with a few leaves. I tossed them a handful of compost, maybe that'll perk them up if the shock of being moved doesn't kill them. That leaves one still in the soon-to-be blackcurrant patch. Someone suggested I leave it in the streeet with a note: "Free to Good Home".

Had a chat with Frances next door, who tells me the bulbs coming up in the front are bluebells. I dug a load of them up during a heavy weeding session last year, damn. Anyway they reproduce themselves so probably no harm in thinning them out a bit. Everything is budding or already leafing out, you can nearly hear some plants growing they're shoving out foliage so fast. The honeysuckle is doing well after being bashed about by various tradesmen, and the rose bush out the back is coming away nicely too.

The elder at the back is also sprouting. Frances says her husband cut it down for Mrs Blacker a few years ago but it just grew back. I might cut it down too -- it only managed to squeeze out a few pathetic bunches of flowers and berries last year. I'd rather put an apple tree in there. The trouble is, you'd have to kill it stone dead, not sure how to do that without resorting to poison.

Next on the gardening agenda is reseeding the lawns -- they are both a mess of weeds and moss and crap (literally -- courtesy of the birds). Last year it was tragic looking out the upstairs window, my lawn and Jim & Rosemary's were like an advert for before and after -- guess whose was the "before". At the moment it's even worse, because I tramped around on the grass while it was frozen, a big no-no. It's all dead-looking and yellow between the steps and the bird-feeders.

Tomorrow after the windows bloke comes back with the mended window I'm going to the tile shop to drool over splashback solutions, then to see Best in Show. I need a week off, not just a day.

Renovation update: The windows bloke came, as arranged, to take away the defective unit. The piece of Very Strong plywood he'd brought to leave in its place was a foot too short. He'd done the meauring, someone else had done the cutting. Luckily I have plenty of top quality laminate offcuts in the shed, so he used one of them to bodge a solution. Burglars note: it is Very Secure.

I was watching the bloke (forgot to ask his name again) taking out the unit and noticed a sudden shower of the tiny beads inside it. Peering closer I saw they were pouring out of a hole in the inside of the frame. The bloke said someone had driven a screw through it.

"I'm surprised the chaps who installed it didn't notice," I said.

The look he gave me spoke volumes. It said: "Nothing surprises me, I've seen it all. They probably did notice and didn't say anything to save themselves the hassle of replacing it. They might even have done the damage themselves." He didn't say a word. Extremely eloquent though.

After that I faddled around carrying furniture and pot plants upstairs, had lunch and did some gardening -- inspired by the Marshalls Kitchen Gardener's catalogue that came through the post this morning. I weeded the beds out the back and sprinkled round a bit of stinky compost I bought last year. It's a concentrated manure and seaweed blend, so it's foul. I also shifted one of the hydrangeas from its prime position to the back of the back yard. I thought there was just one big plant, but there are four of them, bunched together. I don't know what to do with the others, I might put them out the front. I don't like hydrangeas much. I'm going to plant blackcurrants in their place, and possibly raspberries.

In the next week or so, weather permitting, I'll extend the bed I've been digging along the fence, ready for rocket and runner beans. I've already got the rocket seed. I'm going to get Red Rum beans, "an amazing development", according to the catalogue. "It can set beans under all sorts of conditions by self-polliination so that it outcrops all the standard varieties." There's even a testimonial from Mr S. Freeman in Essex. I just like the way they look, twining up a wigwam of poles, covered in scarlet flowers. Also pondering courgettes (Kojac, a compact, spineless variety you can grow in the patio) and strawberries (Marshmello -- "combines a wonderful old-fashioned flavour and aroma with reliability in varied conditions"). I'd like to grow tomatoes in the tiny patio bit out the back, it gets really hot out there and is sheltered too. Carefree appeals: "Plant it, forget it -- well, almost! -- until you start to pick the masses of fruits."

The catalogue is so seductive, everything looks delicious. All kinds of unusual things too -- salsify, seakale, chinese water convolvulus. Argh! I've just seen something called Land Cress, which looks just like what I weeded out of the garden this afternoon! Hmmm, maybe not...

Mushrooms too. That would be a little creepy though, "pre-spawned compost" cooking away in a cupboard. Also they present the same problem as the rest of the catalogue: vast quantities. Raspberries: 12 canes. Rhubarb: 3 crowns. Mangetout: 18ft row. I'd open the door and the cupboard would be full of glowing white fungi. Mushroom omlette, anyone? Spaghetti sauce? I could always freeze stuff, I guess. Yeah right.

The tile guy rang with a quote, quite reasonable. I need three square metres of tiles, he says. So I'll go in to the shop tomorrow and get some samples to take home and try against the decor. Deciding on colours should only take six months or so.

I had an offline day off yesterday, bliss. I didn't answer the phone, didn't check my email. Just sloped around in my painting clothes, painting. I did the woodwork round the french doors -- two coats of primer and a coat of gloss white. Also washed the car, and did some extremely light housework. The living room is a bomb site. Tomorrow I'll continue moving stuff upstairs ready for Dougie next weekend. So the upstairs will be a bomb site as well. Maybe I should go and live in the shed, it's marginally tidier than anywhere else, with the added bonus that it doesn't matter if I drip paint/varnish on anything.

This morning I did some quality loafing with the paper, a big mistake -- the glorious sunshine had become heavy rain by the time I was washed and dressed.

I've turned a non-smoking corner (if you get my drift...) -- my sense of smell is back. I went to the supermarket on my way home on Friday and was blown away by how good everything smelled. Mmmmm fresh basil! And the broccoli! Yum! The fish section smelled so deliciously of Arbroath smokies I suspected Tesco of installing some kind of automatic scent machinery, like the ghastly air-freshener in the toilets at work (there's a strange little hum, and suddenly you're choking on concentrated Spring Breeze) but nicer. I did have a cigar in the pub during the break on Friday, one of the little skinny ones. But the return of lovely smells is a real incentive not to go back to my peak consumption of 10 a day. Cigarettes, not packets, I never was a heavy smoker.

The Sims extension pack is slightly disappointing. The llama topiary was exciting for a minute, but there doesn't see to be much in the way of architectural extras.

The windows blokes came at 10am, not noon, waking me out of a sound sleep. Most embarrassing to answer the door in dressing gown with my hair upside down. I must have looked a fright, because they looked frightened.

Anyway they (two new fellows) went to work with a will. Good news: it's mostly finished. Bad news: one of the "units" in the french doors has to be replaced. I'd noticed these little tiny beads of something between the two panes of glass, and they said that meant it was defective. It's toughened glass so would normally take a fortnight, but through some jiggery pokery they're fixing it next week. On Monday they come and take out the unit and put in a sheet of plywood. Then on Wednesday they come back with the fixed unit. Any burglars reading please note: I'm assured the plywood is Very Strong.

Once they finally finished I went to PC World to convince myself once and for all that I cannot afford to upgrade my creaking computer. No, no, no. And came away with an upgrade ... for the Sims. Oh dear. I hadn't played Sims for ages but then Anthea was talking about her Sims and how well they're doing etc and I started playing it again. It's horribly addictive once you get started.

Speaking of addiction, I've stopped smoking yet again. I had one on Saturday afternoon, but apart from that it's been about ten days. I thought I might start again on Saturday night, but not many people were smoking at the pub. And then last night (this counts as Thursday because I haven't been to bed yet, so we're talking about Wednesday -- like you care!) I was at the pub with smoking people and didn't scrounge one. The worst craving I've had so far was while listening to a radio discussion last week about lung cancer. Yap yap yap about smoking. I was gasping for a cig.

I remember once I had been off smokes for months & then watched Silkwood, the Meryl Streep movie about Karen Silkwood, the anti-nuke whistle-blower. Everyone in that movie chain-smoked. During an ad break I rushed to the chippie for a pack of ten -- part funded by my flatmate, who also fell off the tobacco wagon during the movie. In one scene Karen's husband walks out, bangs the door dramatically behind him. Seconds later he bursts back in, grabs a carton of cigarettes from a cupboard, then leaves again. CARTONS of cigarettes, remember that? What extravagant risks we took back then. Ah, those were the days.

I was supposed to have gone home ten minutes ago but I've been emailing etc; so I may as well throw in an entry here. There's been a flurry of emails from hither and yon, forcing me to look up things like Idiopathic Thrombocytopaenic Purpura (not as bad as it sounds, apparently & Daniel's getting better) and Clarendon (not far from Waihola, phew).

I had a soporific couple of days off, did a lot of housework and a spot of gardening but not a lot else. But it's just the lull before the storm.

Tomorrow the window blokes are coming, and on Friday a man's coming to measure up the kitchen for the splashback tiles. I thought about doing it myself, but it's quite complicated. I'll watch the professionals closely then maybe try my hand in the bathroom. I'd love to do something mad in there with mosaic: a Gaudi knock-off with bits of broken crockery and mirror and whatnot. But the kitchen needs to be reasonably sensible, I think.

The big challenge is chosing something. I thought I'd more or less decided (smallish tiles, patchwork of lightish, brightish colours), but the tile shop was a phantasmogoric wonderland of colour, texture, glaze and size. 3-D yachts! Sweet! How about this gorgeous little number with a goldfish leaping next to a waterlily! Ooooh, art deco ... glass mosaic ... metallic effect fossils ... Get me out of here. The man kept showing me more boards: Victorian borders, inset feature tiles, matt, gloss, rustic, vegetable themes, frogs, aiee!

Then there is the tile shop I'm afraid to go into. It has a wonderful selection of hand-made tiles, including stylish-yet-earthy ones with Pictish symbols. Ruinously expensive though. Sigh.

Then sanding and varnishing the french doors as mentioned previously. Next week I have to move most of the furniture upstairs, and the flooring is delivered. I got all that sorted on Monday -- the bloke in the warehouse said, "You'll be able to remember what day they're delivering, because it's my birthday!" I have to also climb up to the loft and retrieve the packet of planks I stored up there. Hope I don't kill myself in the process, that would be a shame. Dougie and Bob are coming the following weekend to lay the floor, Dougie reckons they'll just take two days. Please let that be true. It felt as though they were there for a week the first time round, they made such a racket and a mess.

I really must go home.

Two days off coming up, not a moment too soon. Last week was exhausting. Even yesterday was tiring, and that was a day off. I haven't got a lot planned for my days off, hurrah!

Today I went for a great walk, over an hour of brisk healthy striding. The roads were thronging with other brisk walkers -- the cross-country footpaths are pretty much all shut down because of the foot and mouth outbreak. The Dalmeny estate is on a war footing: the main estate entrance and the estate farm entrance were covered in straw and guards had been posted to make sure visitors used the disinfectant footbath.

The more I learn about foot and mouth, the more baffled I am. I'd always thought it was a dread disease, on a par with leprosy or bubonic plague -- in fact it's been called a plague in headlines in A Certain Newspaper. But it turns out it's about as serious as a bout of the flu. If you leave the sick pigs and cows alone they get better. One writer said the wholesale slaughter was an economic thing: infected livestock lose condition & weight and aren't worth as much. And because it spreads so fast it's better to kill all the animals in an infected herd than risk gazillions more animals getting it and being worth less. Apparently.

The other thing, of course, is that you can vaccinate livestock against foot and mouth disease. But that costs money, and again, apparently it's cheaper to risk having to slaughter all your animals than to make sure they don't get sick in the first place.

Meanwhile, back in my disease-free habitat, Dougie and Bob are coming in a fortnight's time to do the floors. He reckons it will take two days: Saturday and Sunday. I have to go in to the warehouse tomorrow and make sure they've got all the right stuff, which they'll then deliver. In the week before Dougie arrives, I'll have to move as much furniture upstairs as possible. The windows blokes are coming on Thursday. If they fix the boards around the french doors then, I can sand and varnish them over the following few days, so they'll be finished before Dougie and Bob get stuck in.

I have fantasies of painting the livingroom before the floors are done, but I have to stamp them down. I would have to scrape off all the embossed wallpaper first, ghastly business, then no doubt plaster over various holes and cracks before painting, or put up lining paper. Just too complicated, messy, time-consuming and tiring. Same with the dining room. I've more or less decided on colours -- darkish green for the dining room, perhaps with dark red velvet curtains and a lightshade with some kind of crystals or sparkles; and my favourite pale adam green for the living room with white dotted muslin curtains. I'd like to recover the sofa and chairs in lighter shades too, cream and pink maybe.

This just in on the foreign wire:

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) – Passengers arriving at Prague’s Ruzyne airport from Britain and Ireland will in future be asked to clean their shoes on specially laid rugs to prevent the possible spread of hoof-and-mouse disease to the Czech Republic.

Hoof and mouse! It sounds so sweet. Please wipe your feet to avoid infecting Czech mice with your vile British disease.

More tooth-grinding over insurance. It's gotten so complicated I can hardly follow it myself, so I hope the insurance company can grasp the fact that they still owe me £100. I got two cheques in the mail today, both £50 short. And no, it's not a coincidence: £50 is the policy excess, which they've already taken off.

I tried phoning but it was constantly engaged, so I sat down and wrote them a letter. I enclosed a copy of the letter I sent the inspection firm, and photocopies of the tear-off bits that came with the relevant cheques. The whole time I was doing this my irritation levels were rising. Why is this so HARD? Where's the good karma payoff from not cheating them over the rug? Why am I even bothering? If it had been just £50 I wouldn't have, probably. But the second extra £50 really got my goat.

At least I can go ahead and get the new flooring laid, that's something. Dougie's phoning me tomorrow with a date, and I have to pop in to the warehouse to check they've got the right laminate.

After all that -- and given that I was going in to work early -- there wasn't time for the gym. Oh, what a shame! I'm so stunningly lazy I'm almost ashamed of myself.

The weather this morning was stunning. There was a thick river fog that we get now and then, a freezing fog that left some hedges up on higher ground frosted all over. After it cleared it was brilliantly sunny, eye-achingly so. I feel as though I've been hibernating on days like this.

Tomorrow I'm taking the cat to the airport to meet her baldcat, who's been in Paris for a week. I haven't minded minding her, but I won't miss her litter tray. This is a cat who goes outside for half an hour then comes back inside to go to the toilet.

In the evening there's a farewell party at a pub in town for Davie, who plays Irish and Scottish music on the fiddle. That should be fun. He's off to New Zealand.

I feel slightly guilty about this, but my life feels pretty normal. According to reports from the other side of the world, where I live is in the grip of apocalypse -- plague, blizzards, terrible accidents. You'd think I'd be suffering. But no. I was slightly annoyed by the fact that my newspaper wasn't delivered two days in a row, and the rubbish was collected a day late. Oh, and the deadlines at work have been moved forward. But that's it. Hardly chaotic.

Joking aside, it's very nerve-wracking for my farming friends -- there are two suspected cases of foot & mouth disease in Scotland, one in Dumfries and one in Grangemouth, near Edinburgh. There was one suspected case at a pig farm in Aberdeenshire, but it turned out to be frostbite. Yes, it's very, very cold in the north, and the poor pigs live outside. I was surprised that the virus can survive such intense cold, but apparently it thrives in winter conditions, it's heat that kills it, even sunlight. The last outbreak lasted from November to April.

The snow is still lying and a little more fell this morning. Just a powdery sprinkling, nothing serious. It's bitterly cold, so nothing is melting. Apparently the main road between Glasgow and Edinburgh is bordered by tall icy drifts. When I came in to work today the city looked magnificent: Arthur's Seat was brilliant white and bathed in sunshine, and the dark crags of the Castle looked dramatic silhouetted against it. I always get a thrill from the beauty of Edinburgh, even after 10 years.

Ten years ... good grief ... that fairly flew by. In fact it's nearly 11 years. Jings.

I dragged my sorry carcase to the gym today and took a little light exercise. I'm trying to get into running, with the eventual aim of jogging in the outdoors. For now what I do is brisk walking (on the treadmill) for a few minutes, then running for one minute, then go back to brisk walking. I am severely unfit due to joyfully embracing car ownership, so a minute's running is a much bigger achievement than you can imagine. There were other people in the gym, so it was an even braver deed. The good thing about the little village gym though is that the clientele aren't as scary as at the gyms I used to go to in town -- more baggy trackies and t-shirts, less lycra.